St. Paul daily globe., 1887-07-04
WHAT SOME PEOPLE EAT.
The Tidbits That Appeal to Chill
dren of Nature in Many Parts
of the World.

I
ner. 81 have given the subject a great
deal of thought, and have travelled so
much that / have become almost an
anchorite in the matter of eating. Ii
have weakness it is dietetics.
| ''There is this about food: in point OF
! quantity, without regard to quality. the
| dwellerS in the extreme north claim
pre-eminence. An ESquimauX will
eat twenty pounds of meat per diem,
lubricating the mass with as much
Oil as he can swallow; yet a Ton
| gOuse will go twety pounds better, Tor
he can get away with forty pounds OF
| reindeer meet in the same space of time.
| Both of them blush for their feeble pow
erS when they see three YakuteS demol-
lSh a whole reindeer at one sitting and
rise apparently none the worse for the
| feed.
The greatest luxury Greenlander
can enjoy is half putrid whales tail,
with relish of the gum of the proper
kind from the same animal. Our Dr..
Kane was much pleased with the walruS
liver. He wondered that we didn't eat
raw beef, a practice, by the way, not
unknown to many of our German citi-
Zens, who will snap up piece from a
butchers block whenever they can hon
| attractive qualities, although L could
never discover them, because old whale
men commonly partake of it. TOa SEN
Sltlye palate it has very rank flavor.
| The A. b seamen in the whaling ships
make it into force-meat balls, to remind
them. perhaps, of the fish balls of Maine
or New Hampshire.
.'POrpOiSe meat was once favored
dish with the old English nobility, at
least so runs the story, which declares
| the proper sauce to have been COM
pounded of sugar, vinegar and bread
crumbs. The trapper in the far North
loves beaver tail and bears paw, and
quite right he is. In arctic regions eat
| ing is no easy matter; everything is so
hard that good teeth are as necessary as
sharp knives, while drinking requires
care. else the glass may become part of
the lip. In those frigid parts you eat
YOUR rum and chew your brandy. Ii
| fish is to be served up there it has first
to be caught, then thawed, before being
swallowed. Experience can alone re-
veal the secret of the ESquimauX'S love
for a nice greasy, yielding tallOW can
die. and of the lingering sweetness long
drawn out as he pulls the wick gently
between his teeth, so as not to lose one
particle of its flavor.
The AuStralaSian is rather odd in the
matter of dieteticS. One New-HOl-
lander l saw dispose of more than a
hundred vaulting rats at one repaSt,
swallowing them, for the most part,
with some of the hair still upon them,
holding them by their tails and biting
the bodies off with his teeth. Not to be
waSteful, he afterwards disposed of the
tails. The same innocent children of
Nature affect stale shark, rancid whale
blubber, earthwOrmS, and such tritleS.
Kangaroo tail is a dish all Australasian
finds much flavor in. 1t is delicious.
The natives highly esteem the silent
but wild dingo, neither do they turn up
their noses at rats, but gluttOny is al
lied to rudeneSs. The black fellow,
when at meals. devOurS all he can, only
now and then flinging a morSel over his
shoulder to his wife and children.
He is likewise improv!dent, for he
seeks food only when he Graves it,
gorgeS to the last possible tension of his
dirty, black skin, and then sleeps for
several days and nights cOnSecutively.
Eating in the Australian bush, by white
folk, is sadly marred by flies, fleaS and
the yellow bottle, supplemented by mos
uuitoeS, compared to which New jersey
ones are but SucklingS.
Coming to South America, the Otto
macs are the oldest people. They sub
SiSt entirely on a fat and ferruginOuS
kind of clay, each man eating daily a
pound or more. The Indians of the
Amazon eat kind of loan, preferring
it to other and decidedly better food.
have seen them do it,. The Peruvians
| are also clay eaters, their mess being a
mixture of taic and mica-rather tough
i food, even for Peru. Other nations are
earth eaterS-the inhabitants of New
Guinea. some of the BOlivianS, the ne
grOeS of Jamaica and the natives of New
Caledonia, as well as many people who
dwell in Siam, Siberia and Kamshatka
The OttOmacS, however, are the only
ones who subsiSt on clay when other
food is Obtainable.
sin Africa found diet as various as
the people, and such trifles as blue mole
mice, fat sleeps tails, Stewed puppies
puma, baked elephants trunk and feet
ostrich eggs, ants Stewed in butter, cat
erpHlars, roasted spiders, snails eight
inches long,, and odd articles not gen.
orally regarded as food are consumed.
''When the natives of the West Indies
are regarded from dietetic standpoint
baked snakes glide into the menu along
with palm-wOrmS "a finger long,, fried
in their own fat; yet these cOlOred
gourmands cannot abide rabbit stew
Rats are there also considered q nice
side dish, with occasional relisheS OF
gecana eggs and palm-tree snout beetles
Sounds nasty, doesn't it?
''In those Asiatic countries where
have been, the palate can be disgusted
or tickled with no end of curious dishes
We know how ingenious the Chinese
are in their CUISINE, finding delight in
half-hatched eggs, sharks fins and
mawS, fowls and ducks tongues, dogs
hindquarterS, rat soup, soup made from
the nests of the HirundO eSculentO, and
as an appetizer, the chrysaliS of the
silk worm after the silk has been wound
from it.
.'In Siam the dried sinews of various
animals form dish much liked.
found it very good. Alligators' eggs
are eaten in many Eastern countries,
and naStier dish it would be hard to
imagine. Ants enter largely into Ori-
entail bills of fare, and in CeylOn the
busy bee is masticated by the very men
who have profted by the honey it has
made.
.'In the Antilles lizard very often is
the piece de resistance. at 4 native feast.
yet they will not touch the toothsome
young alligator. The manatee'S tail is
a staple diet in Honduras. This is not
bad eating.
AT the Falkland Islands gourmet
can enjoy new sensation by eating a
sea on'S tongue. 1t is excellent, but it
must be fresh. Trinidad prideS itself
on alligator and turtle eggs. The best
place, however, for everything relating
to turtle next to Fulton market is the
Isle of Ascension. There they are bred,
fed and from there exported.
''SnailS are eaten everywhere. The
French are great believers in them as a
Suceulent dish. The European market
is mostly supplied from the 'snaileriesi
of the Isle of Crete, where they are cul-
tivated seeundem- artem, and one kind
is specially prepared, being fattened
upon strawberries, for cOnSumptives.